INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL AND FIRM PERFORMANCE IN RETAIL INDUSTRY  Justification of the topic choice The topic justification is proper; the topic itself is not original one but covers very acute academic and managerial perspective. The research goal & research objectives of the thesis are solidly stated and grounded in the theory.  Structure and logic of the text flow The thesis has logical structure; its structural parts are generally well aligned.                                                               Quality of analytical approach and quality of offered solution to the research objectives The research problem originates from the well-known body of theoretical studies, supported by the corpus of empirical research (sometimes contradictory in their outcomes). The student has shown the acquaintance with the recent trends in the studied business area, the retail. The choice of variables for analysing & measuring the intellectual capital, especially from the managerial perspective, is tough and may be calls for deeper consideration in the Thesis.   Quality of data gathering and description The chosen analytical approach is at the good level and is sufficient to meet the research goal of the thesis. The data for the research are of the sample retail companies from the US market; on the one hand it gives the possibility to implement chosen research methodology for the necessary number of companies (data access considerations), but at the same time limits the scope for generalization.  Scientific aspect of the thesis The research model is proposed in the previous studies, its realization is pretty solid; at the same time no additional model to check the sustainability of the results were proposed.  	 Practical/applied nature of research The results shed additional light on the complicated issue of the relationship between firm performance and the intellectual capital. It helps to understand deeper the differences in performance indicators, operational vs. financial, that could somehow be related with some rough proxies of the firm’s intellectual capital. Additional strengths from the applied perspective is the work with data on very concrete segment of companies, the big retailers.  Quality of thesis layout The layout generally fulfils the requirements.  Originality of the text The paper does not contain the elements of plagiarism.  The Master thesis of Sergey Vologzhanin meets the requirements for master thesis of Master in Corporate Finance program thus the author of the thesis can be awarded the required degree.  Date 02/06/2018	 Scientific Advisor:  Snr. Lecturer  Marat V. Smirnov